John Garrels, UM Track, at 1908 Olympic games in London, finished second in the 110 meter hurdles.

(Garrels is at far right.)

Gayle Dull, UM Track, posed with U.S. Three-Mile Team at 1908 London Olympic Games

[L-R: Eisle (Princeton), Dull (Michigan), Bonhag (Irish American Athletic Club), Cohn (Irish American A.C.) Trube (Cornell)

Olympic games, mega-events, and civil societies:globalisation, environment, resistance

This volume explores sports mega-events, their social, political, and cultural characters, the value systems that they inscribe and draw on, the claims they make on us and the claims the organisers make for them, the spatial and ethical relationships they create, and the responses of civil societies to them. Our premise is that sports mega-events are not simply sporting or cultural phenomena. They are also political and economic events, characterised by the generation and projection of symbolic meanings – most obviously over the nature of statehood, economic power, and of collective cultural identity – and by social conflict, especially over land use, and over the extent and contours of public spending commitments. Because of their peculiar spatial and temporal organization, they raise questions about the relationships between global cultural and economic flows and particular local and national spaces. Because of their evolutionary characteristics, they ask us to consider not simply the time of the event but of the effects of the event on the long-term direction, implementation, and consequences of public policy.

Smoke rings:towards a comprehensive tobacco free policy for the Olympic Games

Background The tobacco industry has long sought affiliation with major sporting events, including the Olympic Games, for marketing, advertising and promotion purposes. Since 1988, each Olympic Games has adopted a tobacco-free policy. Limited study of the effectiveness of the smoke-free policy has been undertaken to date, with none examining the tobacco industry's involvement with the Olympics or use of the Olympic brand. Methods and Findings A comparison of the contents of Olympic tobacco-free policies from 1988 to 2014 was carried out by searching the websites of the IOC and host NOCs. The specific tobacco control measures adopted for each Games were compiled and compared with measures recommended by the WHO Tobacco Free Sports Initiative and Article 13 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). This was supported by semi-structured interviews of key informants involved with the adoption of tobacco-free policies for selected games. To understand the industry's interests in the Olympics, the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu) was systematically searched between June 2013 and August 2014. Company websites, secondary sources and media reports were also searched to triangulate the above data sources. This paper finds that, while most direct associations between tobacco and the Olympics have been prohibited since 1988, a variety of indirect associations undermine the Olympic tobacco-free policy. This is due to variation in the scope of tobacco-free policies, limited jurisdiction and continued efforts by the industry to be associated with Olympic ideals. Conclusions The paper concludes that, compatible with the IOC's commitment to promoting healthy lifestyles, a comprehensive tobacco-free policy with standardized and binding measures should be adopted by the International Olympic Committee and all national Olympic committees.

The Security Challenges for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games

Brazilians greeted the long-awaited decision of making Rio de Janeiro the host of the 2016 Olympic Games with tremendous exhilaration. Although Rio’s fantastic natural beauty certainly added to its attraction in hosting the games, its alarming rates of urban crime and violence largely associated with drug trafficking immediately triggered worldwide criticism, and put at issue its ability to guarantee the security for the games. Brazilians have been vying for a position as an emerging global economy and understand the importance of the Games for international prestige. This makes the stakes very high when hosting the Olympic Games in the wake of the 2014 Soccer World Cup, which will also be held in Brazil. This paper explores these criticisms and assesses Rio’s ability to prepare for this important event. The paper further explores the consensus that Brazilians will be more equipped to address actions taken by organized crime capable of affecting the Olympic Games than to face a terrorist attack. Brazil – and Rio – does not figure in the “terrorism map” as a region particularly linked to terrorism. Aside from uncorroborated suspicions of activities by terrorist organizations on the Tri-Border region (Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay), Brazil does not elicit many concerns regarding terrorism.1 Yet, there is no way to guarantee that terrorist organizations will not try to make use of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games to advance their agenda. This being in mind, Rio and Brazil in general face a long road ahead to prepare, prevent, protect and respond to a possible terrorist attack during the 2016 Olympics. It is clear that prevention and preparation towards potential threats to the Games must necessarily include cooperation and exchange of best practices with other countries. 1 U.S. Department of State has confirmed that this area may have been used to transport weapons and conduct financial affairs in the past. This type of activity has been made more difficult with the fortification of border controls in more recent times.

Zika is not a reason for missing the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro: response to the open letter of Dr Attaran and colleagues to Dr Margaret Chan, Director - General, WHO, on the Zika threat to the Olympic and Paralympic Games

Attaran and colleagues in an open letter to WHO expressed their concern about the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the threat posed by the Zika epidemic (Attaran 2016). We agree that Zika virus is of great public health concern and much remains to be known about this disease. Care should be taken to reduce the risk of infection, especially to pregnant women. However, we argue that this is not sufficient reason for changing the original plans for the Games, in particular because of the time of the year when they will take place. The present article outlines several scientific results related to Zika and mosquito-borne infectious diseases dynamics that we believe ratify the current position of WHO in not endorsing the postponing or relocation of the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games (WHO 2016).

Explanations for the United States of America's dominance in basketball at the Beijing Olympic Games (2008)

Anecdotally, the fast pace at which the USA men's basketball team played at the 2008 Olympics was the main reason for their dominance, although there is no way of quantifying what a fast pace is or how it contributed to point differentials. The aim of this study was to examine the game-related statistics that discriminate between fast- and slow-paced games, as well as to identify key performance factors relating to point differentials. We analysed game-related statistics for each quarter of the eight games played by the USA using a k-means cluster analysis to classify game pace using ball possessions per game quarter. We then tested for differences in game statistics between slow- and fast-paced game quarters using analysis of variance and discriminant analysis. How differences in game-related statistics affected point differentials was examined using linear regression. The largest structure coefficient between game paces for the USA was for recovered balls (0.33, < 0.001). The biggest contributors to the point differences in games were recovered balls (16.9, P < 0.001) and field goals (22.2, P < 0.001). We conclude that when the USA play a fast-paced game, they are able to recover more balls from opponents that they then turn into effective field-goal shooting.

A Transformative Olympic Village: The Washington 2024 Post-Games Legacy

This thesis explores the Modern Olympic Games to strategically design an Olympic Village for Washington D.C. that plans not just to house athletes, but to provide a vision for the post-Games city. Through discovery of the spirit and meaning behind one of the world’s biggest events and analysis of various post-Games Villages, the proposed Olympic Village will innovate the future of Washington D.C.’s Southeast region. Study of existing mixed-use architecture, urban planning, and adaptation will help formulate an Olympic Village design. It is the intention that the Olympic Village, much like its athletes, will emulate the Olympic motto “Citius, Altius, Fortius,” meaning “Faster, Higher, Stronger.” The objective is to establish a village that allows for a faster turnaround in post-Olympic design, utilizes higher standards, and uses stronger applications to building a more sustainable city.

Public hospital utilisation during the 1997 Arafura Games

In view of the upcoming Sydney Olympics and several recent reports describing the experience at the Atlantic Olympics, we report the findings of the only Australian study which, to our knowledge, measured the impact of a large-scale sporting event on a public hospital. The study also provided an avenue for increased surveillance for communicable diseases. We prospectively assessed the utilisation of the Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) by visiting athletes, officials and spectators during the 1997 Arafura Games, a biannual, seven-day international sporting event which attracts some 4,000 athletes and their supporters from across Australia, South-East Asia and the Pacific. The RDH Emergency Department (ED) is the only free, 24- hour medical facility in Darwin and no additional staff or resources were provided during the Games period. Official facilities included two privately operated sports medicine clinics for the sole use of athletes with sporting injuries during prescribed hours in the week of competition, and the presence of St John Ambulance at venues...